


before the storm

by pledispristin



Category: Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, M/M, Revolutionaries In Love, Slow Burn, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 18:42:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14939760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pledispristin/pseuds/pledispristin
Summary: Even if the revolution was a success, even if he made it out alive, Hwang Minhyun was going to be the death of him.





	before the storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilaliacs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilaliacs/gifts).



> so guess who's back to writing wanna one fic...this girl  
> pretty fitting that this is finished on the 1 year anniversary of the produce 101 finale, huh
> 
> a few opening notes:
> 
> a) i really don't want to call this a les mis au but...that's what it is, i'm so sorry. if you're familiar with les mis, i lifted a couple characters's personalities from the barricade boys (jisung - combeferre, sungwoon - courfeyrac, daniel - feuilly, guanlin - gavroche, and our main pair...well, you can do the math yourself), but if you're not then you definitely don't have to have read or watched it to be able to read this. it's mostly just an expansion on the revolutionary subplot anyway, and none of this gay shit actually happens in canon les mis so you're fine
> 
> b) there are some references to drinking interspersed throughout, but no extremely graphic scenes of it. there's a scene discussing suicide (from ""Right, Jaehwan said" until ""You sound like you have a plan, Seongwoo says". there's a scene in which there is explicit police brutality (from ""He's only seventeen," Jisung says" until "Inside, the mood is somber."), as well as references to it throughout. if you're triggered by any of that, please skip over the scenes, but bear in mind that they are quite pivotal to the plot so it might not make as much sense
> 
> c) i started writing this fic while i was somewhere with no wifi, and thus the revolution depicted in this fic is fictional. i didn't have wifi for a good part of the writing process and by the time i had it, i had written so much that i would need to go through it all to make it a real revolution. i also thought it would be offensive in a way to the memory of people who died in real revolutions to write a fic based on one. in the same vein, this fic is based geographically and culturally in a kind of portmanteau of early 18th century france and early 20th century korea...just suspend ur disbelief ok
> 
> d) this is a day-late birthday present for my beloved [kaya](https://twitter.com/1102_cafe), one of my closest friends and favourite people. i love you kaya! i'm sorry this was a day late but i love you and i hope you enjoy my wanna one fic homecoming! 
> 
> e) the title is from one day more, the song in les miserables. im so sorry.
> 
> i hope you enjoy!!!

There are some times when Seongwoo can think of nothing he wants less than to listen to Minhyun talk.

When he spots him in town, staring down an office, his eyes dark with fury and his shoulders poised as if the weight of the world lies on them, and Seongwoo wants to grab hold of his arm and drag him away before he speaks and gets thrown in jail. (Ultimately, it always ends up being Jisung or Sungwoon who does it, apologizing profusely and making whatever excuse necessary, making it as apolitical as staring down a soldier can be.)

When he’s talking in his careful, passionate way, voice rising in volume until he can be heard, muffled, from downstairs, and the bartender raps on the ceiling to tell them to shut up because if the wrong person hears them his business would be closed by tomorrow. (He speaks in a way that sparks revolution, and Seongwoo is beginning to think that nobody would want a revolution if Minhyun hadn’t stood up and roused them to duty.)

When the fire that seems to go through Minhyun’s veins is especially bright, as if someone has just poured gasoline into it, and Seongwoo wants to despise the way he seems larger than life and terrifyingly self-assured. (The confidence, the sure smile that plays across his lips, the way every move he makes is clear and calculated—it’s infuriating but Seongwoo could never hate him for it.) 

And now, when his face is unreadable not because he’s hiding his emotions in any way but because his expression is impossible to be summarized by any word Seongwoo can think of. There’s rage there, but there’s always rage there with Minhyun, some righteous fury that, Seongwoo thinks, would burn anyone else to death from the inside out. Not Minhyun, though. Minhyun’s been angry for as long as Seongwoo has known him, and all it does is spur him on further, faster, stronger. There’s disappointment, and disgust, and open dislike, all emotions that Seongwoo knows all too well on Minhyun’s face, and he curses to himself that all those ugly expressions don’t make Minhyun any less good-looking. 

But there’s the quieter emotions, too—thought, consideration, an unwilling gratefulness at the challenge. Seongwoo thinks, on a good day, that perhaps _unwillingly grateful_ is what Minhyun always thinks about him. (On a bad day, he knows that’s not the case. He’s not sure why Minhyun hasn’t pushed him down the stairs to hit his head on the floor of the pub downstairs—grace, probably, or simply a lack of care. Seongwoo can’t help but find it ironic that Minhyun can bear all of Korea’s fury in every fiber of his being, but never thinks to pull the thorn that is Ong Seongwoo out of his side.)

“It always comes back to this with you,” he’s saying, merciless with the personal attack, never objective when it comes to Seongwoo. Jisung keeps his heart steadily removed from the dramatics—Sungwoon ignores them altogether. But Minhyun takes everything personally, his mind fixated on every little thing, every small nab making its way into his chest. “You’re saying, why should we fight against oppression, because in the end, what does it _matter_? Our country is under attack—has been under attack, for years—and your reaction is _why should we care_?”

“It’s not that I don’t see a reason for caring,” Seongwoo says. “It’s that I don’t see a reason for trying. Sure, you can want them out, and you can be quietly annoyed at whatever the hell they’re doing now—but people before you have tried and failed, and they really can’t be overthrown no matter how hard we try, so yeah? Why should we care? Why are we here, plotting away, when people more experienced and more intelligent than any of us are rotting in a jail cell or waiting for the guns of a firing squad to be pointed to them?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do?” Minhyun says. “Because—because we’re lucky, to be here, to have the knowledge and the resources to even be _dreaming_ of revolution, and if we have that luck, if we have that wealth and that power, it should go to the people. We’re here not—not because we’re suffering especially, but because those who are can’t speak for themselves. We’re _obligated_ to give power to those who don’t have it themselves, to give a voice to the people who would otherwise stay silent.”

Sometimes, when Minhyun talks, Seongwoo thinks he might almost believe what he has to say. If anyone was capable of this almighty task, he thinks, it’s Hwang Minhyun, with his silver tongue and his resolute determination. 

To say so, however, would be admitting defeat, not just in the argument but in something much bigger than that. It would be an admission of defeat to everything that made up Minhyun, to the charm and the carefully selected words and the idealistic ambition. And Seongwoo would rather be in that jail cell, or at the mercy of that firing squad, than admit all of this to Minhyun. “That’s all very noble,” he says, “but ultimately useless. It’s nice that you seem to think you’re some kind of messiah, though. I’m sure the poor people of Korea would be thrilled to rally behind a nice wealthy young man with a college education and a family fortune. They’d definitely be able to relate to you.”

Minhyun makes a wordless noise, giving away his frustration without having to state it. It’s almost satisfying, being able to irritate Minhyun to that extent, being able to push his buttons enough for him to show it on his face. Then again, it’s not hard. Minhyun was blessed with charm and charisma and an incredible mind and a beautiful face, but he was not blessed with subtlety. That’s why he’s the leader, the rallying cry—why everyone looks to him for his cruel, raw honesty. “You’re ridiculous, Ong,” he says.

“Did you ever consider that maybe the people don’t want to revolt?” Seongwoo continues. “That perhaps they’re tired of watching people get dragged away by the officers, that they don’t want to give up their livelihood—their family, their home, their safety—to rally behind a cause they’ve seen fail a thousand time? Face it, Minhyun—you’re idealistic in this time? That’s great, but most people aren’t. Most people are resigned to the fact that this is their life now, and there’s literally nothing they can do about it that wouldn’t land them in prison. Or worse, _dead_.”

A silence falls across the room. Minhyun is fuming, but as always Seongwoo can’t tell if it’s because of him or just because of principle. Sungwoon places a hand on his shoulder, reassuringly—shooting a glance towards Seongwoo that could be a glare but could also be an apology. “I think that’s enough for today’s meeting,” he says softly but forcefully. “We’ll meet here again in four days, same time, same place. Daniel, follow up on those factory workers. Jihoon, if you think you know someone who can get ahold of black market ammunition, look into it and don’t make a purchase before reporting back. Meeting adjourned.”

Seongwoo never hangs around at these things. He’s first out of the door, barring a final glance towards Minhyun, one that he prays isn’t noticed by anyone else.

 

Minhyun had begun the Society of Comrades when he was still at university, disguising it as academic so nobody would look into its true purpose—sparking a revolution. He’d been an intelligent student, and his father was a prominent university benefactor, so nobody had paid it any thought.

Back then, there were a lot less of them. The inner circle of the Society remains roughly the same, no matter how much quiet campaigning is done in whispers on the street and secretly reproduced pamphlets. Yoon Jisung—the right hand, the mind behind every operation. Ha Sungwoon—the left hand, the soul of the Society. Minhyun himself, unofficially their leader, uncomfortable with the way everyone looked to him as their champion. _I don’t want to be your leader_ , he wants to yell. _I want change, but I don’t want to be at the forefront of it._

But chants that stay inside his head don’t fall on any ears. Except, perhaps Sungwoon, who stares him down after the meeting like he’s expecting anything at all to change. 

“You should stop rising,” he says. “At the end of the day, it just makes you more upset. There’s enough things that you’re worried about without responding to what’s essentially a heckler at the back of the room.”

Minhyun shakes his head. “Seongwoo’s not essentially anything,” he says carefully. “I—I don’t know. He’s smart. And there’s a reason he’s here, right? As much as he wants to argue—he spends two nights a week here helping to plan a revolution, and that’s got to mean something, right?”

Sungwoon’s giving him this look that means he’s being obtuse, that there’s something obvious he’s overlooking. “I just don’t know why you answer,” he says. “If we weren’t all adults here, I’d say he wants a rise out of you.”

“It’s important for me to know how to answer his complaints,” Minhyun says. “We want this revolution to succeed, right? And as stubborn as he is, the stuff he says makes sense. It’s important.”

“But you don’t know how to answer him,” Sungwoon says. “You lose it, and you take it personally, and more often than not you’re the one who has nothing to say in response when the argument is over and done with.” 

“Because _you_ cut me off!” Minhyun says. He hadn’t meant for it to sound as loud as it does, but now that he’s out he sounds like a petulant child, arguing against any reason out of selfishness and dislike for what he was hearing. “I’m sorry,” he adds. “I just—”

“You see the best in everyone,” Sungwoon says. “Not in the way I do, either. But that’s a dangerous thing to do, Minhyun, because sometimes you’ve got to stop believing that everyone has the potential to participate in your revolution when they clearly don’t _want to_.”

“Everyone should want to make this country better,” Minhyun says stiffly, but he knows he’s lost.

“And everyone does,” Sungwoon says. “Nobody wants to live in a country that’s inhospitable—everyone wants the best for their nation. But _better_ doesn’t mean the same to everyone else as it does to you.” He pats Minhyun on the shoulder. “I’m heading off. I’ve already spent too much time here, and people at home will start asking questions.”

Minhyun’s silent. He doesn’t respond to Sungwoon’s goodbye, but he thinks Sungwoon is used to that by now. Or, if he isn’t, he really should be. 

Ong Seongwoo had shown up at the Society’s meetings one day with a bottle in one hand, sliding into a seat at the back of the room. He’d spent his first meeting arguing with Minhyun about the economic state of Korea, and Minhyun had expected him to never come back, which was what most people did when they realized their opinions were fundamentally different to Minhyun’s.

He was there the next meeting, though. And the one after that. He rarely missed a meeting no matter how much he claimed to be a cynic about the whole concept and Minhyun will never be sure if he’s disappointed or satisfied about that. He didn’t interact with any of their group outside of that room, and otherwise didn’t cause any conflict that could be avoided. Sometimes Minhyun spied him in the pub downstairs, knocking back some shady-looking alcohol. 

He intrigues Minhyun. He’s insufferably argumentative and he seems to have taken it as a challenge to frustrate Minhyun as much as humanly possible, and he seems to disagree with him on almost every point he has to say, but something about him sparks a curiosity, a thirst to figure him out as if he’s another cause to fight for, an article from a newspaper that doesn’t add up, a sheet of facts that someone had stolen from the mayor’s office. 

Minhyun’s smart, but he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to figure out that puzzle. Perhaps the answer to the riddle is that there is no answer. Perhaps the reason he can’t understand Seongwoo is because Seongwoo doesn’t want to be understood.

 

Woojin is probably the only member of the Society that Seongwoo can stand outside of the meetings, which is why he knows he’s in for some shit when he sees the look Woojin has for him once he gets downstairs to the bar.

“You’re not doing to drink your sorrows away because you had an argument with Minhyun,” he says, sliding into the chair across from him at the back of the bar. (Seongwoo had always liked being at the back of a room, at the sidelines, hidden by the darkness that the corner provided. More often than not, when people looked around, their gaze just skipped over Seongwoo. Like he was just a piece of furniture. He liked it better that way.)

“I’m not drinking because I argued with Minhyun,” he says weakly, ignoring the look of disbelief Woojin gives him. If nothing else, Park Woojin is an incredibly observant person—he’s managed to pick up on the bizarre cocktail of admiration and intrigue and reverence that Seongwoo has for Minhyun. (He calls it love. Seongwoo thinks love would be a bit less painful. He prefers the term _worship_.) “I’m drinking because I like it.”

“Sure,” Woojin says. “Like I’m going to believe anyone _enjoys_ the soju from this dump. Are you sure you know what’s in that?”

“Yep,” Seongwoo says. “Just the right ingredients to get me extremely drunk.” He takes a long swing, partly to annoy Woojin and partly because he’s itching for it. As much as he denies it, it’s part of his ritual now—piss off Minhyun, revel in the power of the righteous Hwang in his natural habitat, and get completely drunk at the bar downstairs until he’s forgotten what the argument was even about. It’s easier for it to be Minhyun’s fault that way, for Seongwoo to pretend he dislikes him.

Woojin glares at him, exasperated, and Seongwoo puts the bottle down on the table. “You’re ridiculous,” he says. “Do you not think when you’re riling him up like that that he might figure out you’re only there because you love him? In whatever bizarre way you do?” He lowers his voice at this. People in this bar didn’t tell anyone if someone was complaining about the government, but they would tell about this, about _preferring men_. Complaining about the government is justified; liking guys is a sin. 

“I don’t love him,” Seongwoo says. “He just fascinates me. I didn’t think people like Minhyun existed outside of the chivalrous knight in fairy tales.”

Woojin snorts. “Minhyun wouldn’t be the chivalrous knight,” he says, as if it’s obvious—and to Woojin, it is. He knows Minhyun when he’s not rallying to change the world, he’s spoken to him about something other than taxes and tyranny. “He’s not the type to save princesses from their towers. He’d be the one putting them there as a statement against imperialism.”

The idea of Minhyun as a fairytale witch finally breaks Seongwoo, and soon enough he’s laughing hysterically over a brown bottle of soju. “He’d be a successful witch,” he says. “I can’t see him letting the knight in shining armor coming in and stealing the princess away from the tower.”

“No, that’d be letting the monarchy win,” Woojin says gravely. He shakes his head, sighs softly, looks at Seongwoo as if he pities him. Seongwoo hates pity. “I just don’t understand why you want to provoke him so much. You don’t gain anything from it other than _this_.”

Seongwoo laughs hollowly. Admitting the truth, even to Woojin who might as well be his best friend, is a ridiculous proposition. He’s not sure he could find any way to make his desperation to be seen by Minhyun, no matter the context, seem any less pathetic than they were. If he’s making Minhyun angry, that’s an emotion, that’s something Seongwoo has made him feel. And to some stupid, obsessive part of his brain, that’s better than nothing—it’s better than being a piece of furniture.

He doesn’t say that, though. “What can I say, I’m into the whole righteous fury thing,” is what he actually says, and though he means it as a joke, Woojin isn’t laughing.

“This thing is probably going to kill you,” he says lowly. It’s not a comment, it’s a warning, one Seongwoo doesn’t think he’ll ever take but can’t help but appreciate the attempt. “The rest of us are prepared for the consequences because we care about this revolution, because we’re ready to lay our lives down for it—it’s important to us.” He studies Seongwoo carefully. “But I get the sense that you’re willing to lay your life down too—just not for the revolution.”

“I do care about the revolution,” Seongwoo says.

“Yeah,” Woojin says. “But care and devotion aren’t synonymous. I figured you of all people would know that.”

 

The Hwang household is always quiet at night.

It’s quiet because his father is away right now, in the capital, teaching special lectures at the university on Korean political theory. When he comes back, he’ll fix Minhyun with that look if he asks about it, the look that calls him a good-for-nothing waste. _I paid for your university,_ he’d said once, _I made sure you were educated and you could give back to us, and what do you do? Run around using our good name for your peasant revolution._ He’d scoffed, glaring at him with disgust in his eyes, and a part of Minhyun that was still twelve and desperate to make him happy had recoiled. _We’re happy and comfortable, because I worked damn hard to get us here. There’s no need of you to concern yourself with those things._

_I’ll leave, then,_ Minhyun had answered back, looking his father in the eye, not knowing when he’d gotten taller than him. _Find a different place to live where my very existence, where my opinions and what I do with my spare time don’t offend you this much._

His father had scoffed again, derivative, as if Minhyun was a joke to him. As if this was just another bit of youthful rebellion, another contrary quirk, on the same level as his refusal to get an arranged marriage at nineteen or his disgust at playing sports with the neighbourhood boys at six. _Don’t be ridiculous,_ he’d said. _What are people going to think when they see that my only son has been thrown out of my house?_

Because, Minhyun thinks, it was always what people were going to think with his father. His mother was the same way—prim, proper, always admonishing his sisters about their posture and their table etiquette, her eyes glazing when she looks at him as if he isn’t worth her time. They deserve each other, he thinks, with their cold, judgmental ways. 

But the Hwang household being quiet at night means that Minhyun, Sungwoon, and Jisung can occupy the table in the second dining room with their plans, quietly plotting in hushed voices in case they woke up one of Minhyun’s sisters. 

“Do you think Ong was right?” Minhyun asks quietly. “That—that we aren’t relatable to the general public. That they won’t want to rally behind us.”

“Ong talks a lot of shit,” Jisung says, in his uncaring, clipped way. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Minhyun shrugs. “But he has a point,” he says. “We’re claiming to represent the people, when we’re—we’ve not gone through the same troubles that they have, the same hardships. There’s no reason we’re any different to the king and queen, that we’d care about them any more than they do.”

“What do you suggest we do, then?” Jisung says. “We can’t prove that we care about them without being arrested. If one of us gets arrested, the whole thing falls apart.” He shakes his head. “You’re not going to run around getting into shit with the police, Minhyun. You’re our leader.”

 _Well, you picked a pretty shit choice,_ Minhyun wants to say. He doesn’t say it. The last thing he wants is for them to think he’s some insecure, uncertain _boy_.

Sungwoon speaks. “You’ve got the same problem as you always do,” he says. “You look at things as a small part of a whole, almost exclusively seeing things as a whole _society_ , not as _individual people with problems_.” Jisung looks up from his sheet of numbers. “There’s ways to help people, to show that you care, that don’t involve openly rallying on the street and making speeches about how much better you would be to them.”

Minhyun doesn’t know what to say, what to suggest. He doesn’t want to say he’s never thought of that—it looks weak and selfish and just makes sure everyone knows about his one-track mind. _I’m a terrible leader,_ he thinks, not for the first time, wondering who decided that, if there had to be a leader of the Society, it would be Minhyun. Minhyun doesn’t feel like a leader. Mostly, he just feels angry. And frustrated and self-righteous and _scared_.

 

It’s a Thursday night, they’re in a dark room above a shady dingy bar, and Minhyun is shouting.

Seongwoo isn’t sure how this provocation is worse than anything else he’d ever said before— _if you know we have little to no chance, why are you here and not in your mansion somewhere living a comfortable life?_

“You’re so unnecessarily cynical, you know that, right?” Minhyun says, his face fixed in a glare, dark eyes narrowed in dislike. “You take so much pleasure out of—out of finding a flaw in everything we have to say, and in undermining everything that we’ve worked for—that we’re continuing to work for—”

“Oh?” Seongwoo says. “Do tell, then, Minhyun, what great successes the Society have had. _Nothing_. You can’t do shit because the second you open your mouth everyone here gets a prison sentence.”

Minhyun sets his jaw staunchly in place, his forehead creasing and his eyes flashing with anger. Seongwoo wonders sometimes how he can stand to be so angry all of the time. “There’s other things we can do,” he says.

“What’s that?” Seongwoo says. “Sit in here and bide your time? Wile away the hours looking through tax raises? The shit you do in here doesn’t benefit _anyone_ —not the people waiting for a revolution, not the poor people who have resigned themselves to this life, not the—”

“I am trying to succeed!” Minhyun says. “I’m trying for this revolution not to go the way everyone else who’s tried to go—to fail like everyone else before me has. So I’m _sorry_ , but I need—we need to know every variable! We need to—to wait for the right moment, to know exactly what to say, to know how to make this work!”

“So you’re trying to manipulate a revolution?” Seongwoo asks. “Don’t you want this to be organic? A revolution for the people and not for the masses?” He runs his hand through his hair. “If the people want it to succeed, then it will—if they don’t, then it won’t. You can’t manipulate that.”

“I can,” Minhyun says. “I can make them believe in me.”

 _Yeah,_ Seongwoo thinks to himself. _You can, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be dedicated to what they believe in._ “As if that’ll be enough,” he says. “As if standing up and saying some nice articulate words will be enough to—to fight a foe that’s so much larger than anything we could imagine.”

“What the hell do you know?” Minhyun sneers. “You don’t participate in meetings. You sit at the back drinking away at your fucking soju and heckling those of us who _actually want to make a change_.”

“Don’t think you know me,” Seongwoo says. “Don’t act like—don’t act like you understand me. I want this fucking change as much as anyone else in this room does, but I also want to be _realistic_. I don’t want to throw my life away on a revolution that’s doomed to fail.” He stands up, pushing his chair back. “Goodbye, fellow Society men,” he adds. “Perhaps one day you’ll come to your senses and stop—”

 _And stop blindly following beautiful boys with silver tongues because they know how to talk and you think that they could do anything, if they tried hard enough,_ his mind supplies. _Stop throwing your life away for a cause you don’t believe in because you think there’s a chance it might not kill you._

“Stop believing in fairy tales,” he says finally, making his way out of the door and not planning on looking back.

This had happened before. Several times, actually—an argument taken too far, too personally. Seongwoo always ended up walking out; and then, like it was a beacon to him, he’d be there the next week in his table in the back, wiling away the hours with a bottle of soju. He couldn’t stay away from the Society, he thinks, not really, not deep down. He couldn’t stay away from Minhyun.

Funny, he thinks. Fucking around like this, throwing himself into places he didn’t belong—there was no way it wouldn’t kill him. Even if the revolution was a success, even if he made it out alive, Hwang Minhyun was going to be the death of him.

 

Minhyun slides into the chair across from Seongwoo, staring at the wood of the table as he figures out exactly what to say. He’d never before noticed that the wood had so many swooping patterns in it until there was nowhere else to look but the wood.

It’s a Monday—there’s no meetings on Mondays, but here Seongwoo is, getting drunk in the same shitty pub that they have Society meetings in. Minhyun never sticks around for long in the pub section—he makes a beeline through the table, up the stairs, and into the upstairs room that they use for their meetings. But he’s here now, taking in the heavy scent of alcohol and sweat and staring at the patterns in the wood.

Seongwoo looks up from the soju. “The hell do you want?” he asks, slightly slurred but still coherent. Still Seongwoo. “Thought I left the Society.”

“You’ve left before,” Minhyun says. “And you still came back. You’ve always come back before.” He doesn’t know why the idea of a Society without Seongwoo in it feels so wrong—he doesn’t know when Seongwoo came as much a part of the furniture as Jisung, or Sungwoon. Jisung is his voice of reason—Sungwoon is the one reminding him to think about things on an emotional level—and Seongwoo is his critic, the person who grounds him, the person who manages to find a flaw in everything.

It’s annoying at the time, but without it Minhyun doesn’t know what he’d do. Start a revolution with a flawed plan and end up in jail, probably.

“I have,” Seongwoo says. “Doesn’t mean this time isn’t gonna be different.” He drums his fingers on the table, pent-up nervous energy in an uneven rhythm. “The hell do you want?” he repeats.

“Maybe I just want to talk to you,” Minhyun says.

Seongwoo’s eyes narrow. “Well, I sure as hell know you’re not here for the soju,” he says. “Pretty rich boy, probably drink stuff a lot fancier than this.”

“I don’t drink anything at all,” Minhyun says, aware of it making him sound stuck-up. “And—you think I’m pretty?”

Seongwoo shrugs. “I have eyes,” he says simply. Minhyun doesn’t press. “Why are you here, Minhyun? What do you want to say?”

The thing is that Minhyun is an articulate person. He _likes_ to sound intelligent, he _likes_ to be able to use as little words as possible to get his point across. When he chooses what words he wants to say, he selects carefully and surely, toying with his choices across his mind because he wants to be _understood_. And—and more than that, there’s a part of Minhyun that always wants to present the best version of Minhyun—the Minhyun that leads the revolution, the Minhyun that is smart and talented and educated and trustworthy, the Minhyun that doesn’t make _mistakes_. 

But there’s no way to say _this_ and still keep that—there’s no way to go about it, no pretty words that can hide what’s there at its core.

“I’m sorry,” he says, wincing at the way the words sound, the guilt they convey and the mistake they highlight. “For calling you a drunk heckler. It was wrong of me—and I shouldn’t have let it get that personal.”

“An apology out of Hwang Minhyun,” Seongwoo says quietly. “I should mark the day on my calendar.” He takes a small sip out of his bottle. “Are you here because you’re actually sorry, or are you here because someone told you to apologize?”

And Minhyun thinks back to the glares Woojin had given him throughout the last two meetings, the way he’d been so distracted that he couldn’t even meet Jisung and Sungwoon for their post-meeting planning session, the way he’d had Seongwoo’s retreating figure flittering across his head with every other thought. He thinks about the last meeting, one of a handful without Seongwoo ever since he’d started showing up, how silent it had been with nobody _wanting_ to criticize him, nobody wanting to disagree.

Once upon a time, the members that made up the Society had unofficially elected Minhyun as their leader, and had unofficially begun to look to Minhyun to make the final decision. Once upon a time, this almost began to mean that he was the last word, the person who made all the choices, the person who _led them_ and never complained. 

Seongwoo had never treated Minhyun like that. And Minhyun hadn’t realized how grateful he was for him until now.

“Because meetings are bizarre without you,” he confesses. “Because nobody wants to pick the holes in what I have to say, to make an observation that I would’ve never noticed. Nobody but you.”

Seongwoo smiles. “So you’re saying you appreciate my drunk heckling?” he says, and it would be mocking if it came out of anyone but Seongwoo. But Minhyun can’t see it as mocking, as a teasing comment, as something cynical and sarcastic and cold. “I’m surprised. I thought you wanted me out of there as soon as I could.”

“Maybe I did,” Minhyun said. “When you were there. And I didn’t—and it felt like you had something out for me, like you had some personal problem with me and you never ever wanted to agree with me. But now that you’re not there—I’m sorry. And—”

“And?” Seongwoo says.

“What do you want me to say, Ong?” Minhyun says. “That I missed you?”

Seongwoo sighs. “You only call me by my last name,” he says. “You call the other Society members their first names, because you’re always saying there’s no hierarchy in the Society, we’re all on good terms—but you call me _Ong_. Not _Seongwoo._ ”

Minhyun swallows. “I didn’t think you’d want me to talk informally to you,” he says. “Clearly—clearly you don’t like me. I didn’t want you to be offended if I was casual with you.” Seongwoo’s eyes widen. “It’s fine, you don’t have to cover it up—I can handle people not liking me.”

“That’s not it,” Seongwoo says. “I don’t dislike you.” He says it in a way that betrays something more, something almost heartfelt. But Minhyun isn’t good with matters of the heart, and so he can’t figure out what it is. “I’ll come back to meetings. Now that I know you want me there.” And he _winks_ , and Minhyun almost sighs aloud in relief because _this_ , this is the Seongwoo he’s used to.

“I’ll see you there then,” he says, standing up and pushing his chair in. “Seongwoo.”

 

The thing is that when Minhyun isn’t arguing with Seongwoo, when Minhyun hasn’t taken out all his anger at the world on Seongwoo, the sound of his voice is, in some weird self-destructive way, stupidly fucking beautiful. 

He’s blessed, Seongwoo thinks, to be capable of making him believe in anything other than human greed and idiocy. Most people are greedy, and selfish, and don’t act if they can’t calculate exactly how it would help them. Minhyun doesn’t give him hope for humanity as a whole, but he makes him wish that things could perhaps be different, that any average person could wake up one day with righteousness and anger running through their veins.

No, that’s wrong, he thinks. Most people in the Society have anger running through their veins. Minhyun’s different—Minhyun’s anger is bone-deep, as much a part of his genetic makeup as his high cheekbones and dark eyes. Seongwoo thinks he’ll always be gazing hopelessly at Minhyun from across the room—he can’t think of a way to rid himself of the fascination he has with him, of the way a part of him, no matter how small, _wants_ Minhyun to see him as something other than a cynical drunk who sits in the darkest part of the room and takes pleasure in riling him up to the fullest of his abilities.

“It’s disgusting,” Minhyun says, “that farms are being shut down, that innocent business owners are being put out of business just for the crime of not wanting tyrants in our country.”

Seongwoo vaguely registers today’s topic of outrage—some farmer in the nearby area’s door had been broken down by soldiers, and he’d been dragged out and arrested for allegedly criticizing the new tax they’d put on agricultural goods. 

One of the other Society members—Jaehwan? Jaehyung?—raises a hand uncertainly. “Doesn’t this just prove what Seongwoo is always saying?” he says. “That—that we have no chance, because any little insubordination results in jail or worse?”

“I’m sorry, Minhyun,” says Woojin, “but I have a mom and three younger siblings to look after. If the officers come to my house and drag me away, they’ve got nothing.” He tucks his hands into his pocket, adding, “I’m willing to do anything for the revolution, but I don’t want my life to be wasted like that on an arrest. If I’m going to die, I want it to be worthwhile.”

Woojin is just a kid, Seongwoo thinks. He’s a kid and he knows with full certainty that he’s responsible for his entire family—while other people in this country run their mouths knowing that nothing will come of it, that they’re lucky enough to have immunity. He’s a _kid_ , and here he is saying that he’d be ready to die if it was for a good cause. Seongwoo hates selfless people—all throwing their lives away for something bigger than themselves. 

(But it’s in times like these that he thinks he can understand a fraction of why Minhyun is always so passionate—Seongwoo gets angry on behalf of things he can see in front of his own eyes, about the effects he can see clearly on the people around him. Minhyun gets angry about _everything_. Seongwoo can’t imagine always being that driven, always having those _emotions_.)

Minhyun’s eyes turn to Seongwoo. They’re _angry_ , angrier than they’ve ever been—contained fury, a tense expression that Seongwoo has never seen before. No, he has—but never directed towards him. _This is your fault,_ his eyes say. _This is because of you. If you hadn’t been here, if you would just leave, this wouldn’t be a problem._

“Excuse me,” he says, standing up and making towards the door.

Minhyun stares at him. “Where are you going?” he says.

Seongwoo considers telling him the truth. He considers admitting that he can deal with the dislike and the disappointment and the disgust, but this is a new territory—this borders dangerously close to hatred, and Seongwoo doesn’t know how to deal with Minhyun hating him other than running away and never looking back.

“Clearly, you don’t want me here,” he says in a tone that comes out clipped, professional. (Mentally, he gives himself a pat on the back for not showing Minhyun that he’s hurt, that he’s taken even a little part of this personally.) “So I’ll be on my way.”

Silence falls over the room again. Seongwoo can see the cogs turning in Minhyun’s brain, the facts realigning into something bigger, more tangible, terrifyingly real. “I don’t _not want you here_ ,” he says finally.

Seongwoo searches Minhyun’s face for any sign of insincerity, any hint of obligation. If it’s there, he’s done an uncharacteristically good job at hiding it. Minhyun’s got that look in his eyes that he gets when he makes a breakthrough—but not quite, it’s something a bit more muted than that, the excitement and passion replaced with concern. 

For once, he’s not looking at Seongwoo like he despises him. Despite himself, a thrill runs up Seongwoo’s spine. 

“Well,” Seongwoo says, as if to undercut some of the awkwardness in the room, “if you want my thoughts, I think that it would be a good idea to do something about these farmers and factory workers and all of that who are getting their freedom infringed upon. I don’t—I don’t think that has to be achieved with all-out revolution, but I think we need to have a tangible method of protecting those workers while simultaneously looking after our own livelihood.”

Minhyun’s looking at Seongwoo like he’s never seen him before, like Seongwoo is a total stranger and Minhyun is just taking him in. It’s almost satisfying to see that fixed, determined expression, forehead creased in concern. (It’s almost satisfying to have Minhyun looking at him the way he looks at Sungwoon or Jisung or Daniel or Woojin, or any of the other Society members who are to Seongwoo just nameless revolutionary blobs.) “What do you have in mind?” he asks.

“Well, for one, identifying safe areas,” Seongwoo says. He feels Minhyun watching him, feels the eyes of everyone else in the room fixed on him. “Figuring out places where people can talk freely. We should encourage those parents who can’t to—to re-educate their children, because a lot of the time people get arrested on the word of their kids who don’t know any better and don’t realize that telling the truth will mean they’ll never see their parents again. And—and we should deal with people on a case-by-case relationship. Most people in the Society are richer than your average Korean worker, so—I mean, they might find it undermining, but it would be a good idea to take up a collection to support the families of people who get arrested for political reasons.”

He feels like he’s going to be criticized, but Minhyun is staring at him in what could be awe. There’s a smile making its way onto his mouth—not his patented revolutionary smirk, but something lighter, sweeter, something that’s less cold and archangelic and more like a regular human being in their twenties. If Seongwoo didn’t know better, if Seongwoo didn’t _know_ that this was just Minhyun’s natural reaction to someone giving a good idea and supporting his revolutionary ambitions, he’d think Minhyun looked happy. But he does know better, so he refuses to let this be a victory.

 _It’s better this way,_ he thinks. If he starts to believe Minhyun is smiling at _him_ , he’ll go crazy with want, with his hopeless desire to get that smile fixed on him all the time. Minhyun’s smiles, he thinks, are more addictive than any alcohol, harder to get hold of than any drug. He remembers hearing about how China had gone to war for opium, and thinks in some dark corner at the back of his mind that he might go for war for Minhyun.

“You’re right,” Minhyun says. “You’re right, we do need to make sure the workers out there can trust that we aren’t just words, and—yeah, while we bide our time waiting for the revolution. Jihoon, do you know what the old man’s family was?”

“I think he just lived with his wife,” Jihoon says. Seongwoo supposes that he was the one to bring this up—that perhaps he knew the old man, that perhaps he could watch from his own house as the officers dragged him away. He feels sick again at the thought of it. “His kids were—they’re all older, you know? They’ve all left home, I think.”

Seongwoo thinks about what he would do if he saw someone he knew get dragged away. He wants to say that he’d step in, that he’d tell the officers that they did nothing wrong, that they should leave them alone. He thinks he might just stay silent, close his window and pretend nothing is happening. The realization makes him feel even more nauseous. _Coward_ , his brain tells him, the voice in his head sounding suspiciously like Minhyun. 

God, even when the real Minhyun isn’t, the Minhyun in his head will never be happy with what he does. (Seongwoo wouldn’t, either, if he was Minhyun. He thinks, if he was Minhyun, he’d have kicked him out of the Society by now.)

“Do they still live here?” Minhyun says.

Jihoon shrugs. “Not sure, but I think so,” he says. “But I think Ong is right—we need to be able to show solidarity to them.”

“Do you not think we’re kind of turning this old man into almost an unwilling martyr?” Jisung says. “If we use him as a show of solidarity, it’s almost like he’s being turned into a symbol against his will.”

Minhyun shrugs. “It’s like what Ong said the other week,” he says. “Right now, the Society is represented by us—middle class men who’ve almost all gone to university, or at least are educated to the level we’re lucky to have. People can’t relate to that. They’ll think we’re just as bad as everything else who they’ve put faith in—they’ve got no reason to believe we actually care about what’s important to them unless we act.”

Seongwoo doesn’t let himself consider how Minhyun must’ve thought about those words a lot to be able to come to that conclusion, doesn’t allow himself to imagine Minhyun thinking it over in a quiet, solitary moment, considering it with deliberation, coming to a final realization. Had he lost sleep over it? Had it lingered there, in his mind, a thought he can’t let go of?

“My sister is always hiring,” Jinyoung says. “If the old man’s wife has any sewing skills, she’ll look into it. And I can put in a good word for her.” Jinyoung’s sister runs a sewing business in town, something relatively successful but ultimately a shadow of what it could have been. Seongwoo’s met her—she’s nice, if business-minded, but always looking over his shoulder as if she’s afraid. And he would be too—business owners are always in danger, and to boot her brother spends two nights a week plotting revolution. 

Even he can’t stop himself from glancing conspicuously at the ground when he passes an officer, as if they’ll look him in the eye and know exactly what he thinks, exactly what he does, exactly where he’s always been. He wonders how Minhyun looks when he passes them—head high, he imagines, not allowing himself to look their way.

Minhyun would step in if he saw someone getting dragged away by the police, he thinks. Minhyun would probably step in for anyone, whether he knew them or not, whether he liked them or not. Minhyun’s a world apart from Seongwoo, he’s always known that fact, but the reassurance of it fills him with dread.

 

It’s a Friday like any other, an inconsequential day in an inconsequential week, when the Society goes into panic mode.

They’re in the midst of a meeting, distributing newspapers broadcasting fulfilled agricultural goals and comparing them to the figures Daniel had swiped from the factory office, when they hear a sudden commotion downstairs.

“What’s going on?” says a man’s voice.

“Random army check,” says another man’s voice: deep, commanding, accented like an upper class person. “Please be prepared to show papers and prove that you are not causing unrest.”

 _Shit,_ Minhyun thinks. There’s a sheet of figures passing around the room, and several tables drawn up on the blackboard Jaehwan had gotten ahold of at some point, and suddenly Seongwoo was moving, pushing his bottle to one side and grabbing something out of his bag.

“ _The Empire’s Burden_?” Minhyun says, almost offended that Seongwoo carries that propagandist filth around with him. “What the hell, why do you have a copy of _The Empire’s fucking Burden_?”

“Because sometimes the soldiers start watching me and it makes me feel safer if they think I’m a good citizen who carries around a copy of this best-selling government commissioned army-glorifying novel,” Seongwoo says. “Put—put it on your desk. And draw out some characters, on the blackboard. Simple stuff. Simple words. Like—”

“Can you please explain what’s going on?” Jisung pleads. Seongwoo’s brain is going a mile an hour now—Minhyun has never seen him springing into action like this, tongue running and hands gesturing wildly. It’s strange and wild and a little unsettling, and a little jerk at the back of Minhyun’s head almost wishes Seongwoo could _always_ be like this.

“Yeah,” Seongwoo says. “Yeah. Sure. Nobody here is from a particularly well-known family. We’re all educated, but there’s so many Kims and Yoons and Lees and Parks and Kangs—well, anyway, my point is, we aren’t—”

“Can you cut to the chase?” Jisung asks.

“Yeah,” Seongwoo says. “Dear—dear _Mister Hwang’s son_ is teaching us how to read and write Korean. What—what a _noble_ pursuit, huh? Teaching us to read and write, and fucking—grammar in the formal tongue.”

Minhyun’s mouth drops open. “Ong Seongwoo, you’re a genius,” he says, crossing over to the board to begin a lesson. “Whoever has it, dispose of those figures. I don’t know or care how, just make sure the soldiers won’t find it if they pat you down.”

They hear the first stair at the bottom of the staircase creak. And then there’s a _thud_ , because these soldiers don’t know what subtlety is. “Positions!” Sungwoon hisses. Daniel tears up the figures into a thousand pieces and scatters them across the room. Seongwoo donates a soju bottle to the corner—it looks like a dirty patch of floor that’s never been looked at.

“And, as you can see,” Minhyun says, picking up a stick of chalk, just as the soldiers push open the door of the upstairs room. “The formal grammar is very different to the common grammar. Both in pronunciation, in inflection, and in word order. Take the simple sentence—”

One of the soldiers clears his throat. “Random army check,” he says. “Can all of you please provide me with your papers?”

“Oh, of course,” Minhyun says, reaching into his pockets and withdrawing his identification papers. He smiles, earnestly, a smile that could never hurt a fly, let alone break the law. Minhyun didn’t like lying outright—but the situation called for it, so here he was, hoping he was a good enough actor for this. Besides—if anyone deserved to be lied to, it was these soldiers. “Here you go, sir.” 

The soldier scans the paper. “Hwang,” he says. “Like the minister? Hwang Minsung?”

Minhyun nods. “He’s my father, sir.” He beckons across to the room. “I was offering a volunteer service—lessons in Korean language to agricultural and factory workers. I’m teaching them to read and write and how to speak the formal Korean tongue.” He widens his eyes slightly, putting down the chalk he was holding. “I do hope there hasn’t been a problem caused.”

“No, of course not, sir,” says the soldier. “We heard rumours that there was a revolutionary group that met here. I’d like for everyone here to show their papers and turn out their pockets.”

They do. Minhyun’s heart thuds in his throat as the soldier goes through and flicks through everything. Daehwi has a dictionary in his pockets for some fucking reason, only _Daehwi_. Guanlin’s papers have the wrong name on them because he was afraid he’d get himself and his family deported back to Taiwan. Sungwoon had an uncommon enough surname that a brighter soldier could recognize _Ha, like the professor?_ And Seongwoo—god, he’d never met anyone with the surname _Ong_ before, god only knew where the hell he’d come from.

But the soldier stands up, nods at Minhyun, and says, “We’ll be on our way then, Mister Hwang. Say, do you know anything about the revolutionary group I mentioned earlier?”

“The only revolution that’s happening here, sir, is teaching people like _them_ how to speak the correct tongue,” Minhyun lies, wincing internally at his tone and making a mental note to apologize once they leave. 

The soldier laughs. “You’re a noble man, Mister Hwang. Just like your father.” He leads the other three soldiers out, and Minhyun lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

“That was fucking insane, Seongwoo,” Daehwi says.

“Watch your language,” Sungwoon says absently.

“That was fucking _incredible_ , Seongwoo,” Daehwi rectifies, and Sungwoon rolls his eyes.

 

Daniel corners Seongwoo on his way out of the meeting that day. 

“You meeting us for drinks after this?” he says, leaning against the side of Seongwoo’s table. “You deserve it, after saving all of our asses.”

“Who’s going?” Seongwoo says, on impulse more than anything, except there was also the fact that when he spoke to Minhyun _slightly tipsy_ he ended up calling him a pretty boy. 

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were afraid of Minhyun,” Daniel says, a smile playing across his mouth. “But I’ve seen you talk against him enough times to know it’s not that. Woojin has some theories.”

“Woojin talks a lot of shit,” Seongwoo says. 

“Clearly,” Daniel replies. 

“Also, I don’t like how this implies that you spend your time discussing where I am and if I have a problem with Minhyun whenever I don’t come drinking with you,” Seongwoo adds. “I don’t have a problem with him. I just don’t want to go out drinking in a big group—not a big deal.”

Daniel rolls his eyes. “Seongwoo,” he says pleadingly, leaning on the table with his head in his hands. “Come on. You’re a member of the Society, but you don’t act like it outside of this room.”

And that was how Seongwoo ended up in a nicer bar that sold nicer alcohol in a nicer part of the city, wondering if he could afford to make this bar his regular. Their soju definitely tasted better, and made his head ache less when he was drinking it. 

The ten of the other boys are _loud_. Outside of the room on the second floor of the bar, where they were quiet and serious and revolutionary, the ten of them were ridiculously loud and Seongwoo thinks the headache that he didn’t get from the soju might have been made up by the boys.

But then he pays attention. He’s never really paid attention to the other guys, and only now is he realizing just how little he knew about any of them—he barely knew them, outside of the Society. Guanlin is actually the youngest of all of them, even though his voice is low and he’s the tallest one there. Daehwi writes poetry, and apparently he’s quite good at it, but Jihoon leans over to tell him that they’re only being polite and he’s not actually that good. Sungwoon and Jisung share a library, because Sungwoon had a bigger collection but Jisung’s were more specific. Jaehwan sings, and he’s actually good—Seongwoo finds this out first hand, because he bursts into song suddenly once he’s had a few drinks and for someone who’s tipsy at best he’s surprisingly good.

Minhyun pays off the debts of townspeople sometimes, secretly, when they get in legal trouble and he finds out. Minhyun lives at home but doesn’t speak to his family, which Seongwoo thinks must be an incredibly awkward way to go about your days. Minhyun when he’s not the fiery revolutionary, Minhyun when he’s just a man in his twenties who doesn’t drink and watches them all descend into chaos with a fond smile on his face—god, if Seongwoo had hoped in any way that knowing what Minhyun was like outside of meetings would help, he would have been so, so _wrong_.

And by the end of the night when Minhyun crosses the room to where he is, and asks him how come he’s still mostly coherent, and Seongwoo makes a joke about his tolerance to alcohol developing from his increased reliance, he doesn’t lock the sound of Minhyun’s laugh, real and loud and stupidly, obnoxiously beautiful (was it really possible that he’d never heard Minhyun laugh before?) in his heart. 

_I don’t love him,_ he thinks. _I can’t love him, really, not if he’ll never love me back._ He thinks that if Minhyun ever loved anyone, they’d be second to the revolution, they’d never be the top priority. Seongwoo doesn’t know if Minhyun would give up the revolution for anyone he loved.

( _In another life, maybe he could have,_ he thinks fleetingly at the end of the night. _Just not this one._ )

 

“What’s your thoughts about love, Minhyun?”

it’s the kind of question Sungwoon always asks—abstract and philosophical and often extremely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Which, more often than not, was either the state of the nation or the revolution.

“I don’t think I have any,” he replies, shrugging slightly as he pores over the book he was going through—a mostly realistic account of a failed revolution. He was pretty sure that the character assassination, and the elaborate descriptions of the strength of the Korean army—he was pretty sure all of that was exaggerated. But learning from mistakes would help, he thinks. It had to.

“None?” Sungwoon says. “I don’t believe that.”

“I’ve never been in love,” Minhyun says. It sounds wooden on his tongue and sticks to the roof of his mouth, in a way it never had before—it wasn’t the first time Sungwoon had bothered him about his love life, or lack thereof, but it was the first time that Minhyun felt like there was something else, an itch he couldn’t quite scratch. “And nobody has ever been in love with me.” 

Sungwoon laughs. “You really don’t know much about emotions, do you?” he asks, but it’s fond in his Minhyun-is-lovably-awkward kind of way. He hadn’t considered the implication until after they’d moved on, well after Sungwoon had said it—either that Minhyun had been in love and didn’t know it, or that—or that someone had been in love with him once before and he’d have no idea.

The conversation had ended there. And it should have stayed out of Minhyun’s mind, but it hasn’t. He barely even _knows_ any girls—he doesn’t think he’s been close to any who wasn’t a sister or a cousin…well, ever. Some of the Society members had girlfriends at some point, he was pretty sure, but he’d never paid much attention to them even when he’d had the (mis)fortune of meeting them.

 _What if it’s a member of the Society?_ he thinks. Because some men liked men—Minhyun had never _met_ one, but he knew it happened, somewhere, and it wasn’t like Minhyun was the judge of what was a sin and what was okay. _Or—another man, who I don’t know? Fuck, what if it’s one of the inner circle of the Society? Jisung? Sungwoon?_

_Seongwoo?_

Now that the thought’s there, it won’t go out. Seongwoo—Seongwoo being in love with him? He doubted that was possible—Seongwoo didn’t dislike Minhyun, they’d established that, but he couldn’t _love_ him either. They constantly argued, and sometimes Seongwoo would look at him like he was taking apart everything he was saying to pick out later, and Seongwoo called him _pretty_ once but it was to mock him, wasn’t it? To undermine him?

Was Seongwoo in love with him?

(And how did Minhyun feel about Seongwoo?)

He turns over and buries his head in his pillow, hoping that the darkness will stop his thoughts from running at a thousand miles per hour, going places that they really shouldn’t go. Seongwoo is his _friend_. And sure—sure, he’s different to Jisung, or Sungwoon (but they were his best friends, they could never be like Seongwoo) or Jaehwan, or Daniel (but no, Seongwoo is more than that, but it’s still platonic, it had to be). 

Seongwoo is his friend, he reminds himself again. _And if you keep this stupid train of thought running, you won’t even have him as a friend._

But the thought of Seongwoo, of romantic feelings for _Seongwoo_ , make sense. It doesn’t feel like a shock, like something ridiculous, like something he’d never even considered, even in a small dark compartment of his subconscious. It felt like the sudden hyperawareness of every breath that you get when someone reminds you that you’re breathing. 

He buries his head deeper into the pillow and wonders if there was any risk of suffocation. At least if he suffocated he wouldn’t have to think about brown eyes and sharp features and three moles against high cheekbones.

 

Seongwoo hadn’t meant to make going out with the Society members a habit, but it seemed like every week there was something wildly important that he couldn’t miss. (If he didn’t know any better, he’d say Daniel was making shit up.)

Today was Guanlin’s birthday, apparently, and so here they were, despite the fact that at least three of the Society members were underage. (Inclusion, Seongwoo thinks, is a strange and intriguing thing. Had he been a teenager, he’s not sure if he would have been thrilled or irritated by constantly being treated as an adult by an adult. Then again, his mind rectifies, barely able to stop from glancing at Minhyun, the Society were not known for their emotional ability.)

He stands up. “As the most sober person here, it is my responsibility to make a speech to Guanlin.”

Jinyoung beckons to Guanlin and Daehwi. “None of us drink,” he says. “We’re all underage, Seongwoo.”

“I don’t drink, either,” says Minhyun. “Pretty sure I’m more sober than you.”

“Okay, well, you kids can’t make a toast because you don’t have the wisdom and emotional experience that I do—” (He distinctly hears the sound of Woojin scoffing and thinks he will definitely have to get some better friends. Maybe Daniel.) “—and we all know Minhyun would just get sidetracked by talking about the revolution, so no.” (Sungwoon bursts into laughter at this. Seongwoo sees Minhyun glare at him in his peripheral, and for a second thinks _how do you like that now, Hwang?_ )

“Guanlin is a person who always strives to do what’s best for the world,” Seongwoo continues. “Who sacrifices a lot, for example his Tuesday and Friday nights, just to make the world a better place.” There’s laughter at that, too. Damn, perhaps Seongwoo should talk in front of groups of people for a living. “I don’t know Guanlin very well, but I know he’s a great kid and that we’re lucky to have him here in the Society.” He raises a glass. “To Guanlin.”

“To Guanlin.” He’s not sure what Jinyoung is drinking if he’s truly underage, but it’s really not his place to ask those kinds of questions. He’s not Jinyoung’s mother. The first time he got drunk he was fourteen.

Minhyun raises a glass. “To the revolution?” he says.

“No, Minhyun,” says Jisung. “We are not toasting to the revolution at Guanlin’s birthday party.”

“Told you he would,” Seongwoo says in dramatic stage whisper to Woojin, who raises an eyebrow at him like he’s implying something Seongwoo won’t like. 

The noise quietens down when the barmaid shoots them a dirty look, after Jaehwan attempts to lead a singalong of some celebratory patriotic song. (Incidentally, Minhyun also shoots Jaehwan a dirty look, but not because of the noise.) There’s just some smaller conversations going on, quiet debates and exchanges of words that Seongwoo isn’t involved or interested in.

Until Daehwi speaks up. “Seongwoo,” he says, “since you’re here and all, and since you came out two weeks ago and then again the week before that, does that mean you want to get to know us plebeians?”

“Who’s to say I’m not a plebeian myself?” Seongwoo says. It’s funny, he thinks to himself—ever since he’d moved to this town from his first one, people had thought he was either supremely mysterious, supremely wealthy, or both. Perhaps it was the uncommonness of the surname, or something about his face—he wasn’t sure and he’d never asked for fear that the reason why he was actually here was revealed. 

Daehwi scoffs, though. “Clearly you’re one of the elite,” he says. “You’re smart and you know shit. And you talk like someone who’s rich sometimes.”

Seongwoo doesn’t choose to say that he slips into the formal dialect because he’d had to force out his own, natural, rural dialect out of his mouth. Or that he only knew how to read because he’d been in the right place at the right time for an apprenticeship. Or that he’d left his hometown because of the yelling and the rows and the threat of calling the police and cold words spat out of mouths. 

“There’s more to me than what meets the eye, Daehwi,” he says finally. “You’ll learn when you’re older.”

That incites a glare and a yell about how Daehwi is _not that young, thank you very much, he’s actually a very mature and calm person_ , and the conversation shifts to something else. And Seongwoo ignores the way Minhyun keeps taking glances at him; questioning, curious glances. Minhyun could be curious all he wanted, he thinks, because this secret is his to keep.

 

“Do you ever think that, if the revolution is really coming, it’ll have to happen soon?” Minhyun asks once, as they’re talking at the table of his second kitchen. “Things are changing so fast, and so much. It’s like—they know, you know? They know that people are getting angry and restless and that they’re going to have to deal with unrest soon, so they’re desperately trying to silence it.”

“Interesting,” Jisung says. “So you think they’re raising taxes to _curb_ public unrest? Seems counterproductive.”

“Maybe,” Minhyun says. “But also, if people are struggling to eat, if they suddenly have to produce more to make what they’re used to make—it puts them at a standstill for a few months at least. While people readjust and have to start making cuts and changing their way of life.”

Sungwoon peers at the numbers again. “You’ve got a point,” he says. “The numbers are rising enough to cause discomfort, but most people won’t be starving on this—people who weren’t poor before will probably stay in a reasonably privileged position compared to the people on the street.” 

“I don’t think we can really have a revolution until the privileged people lose their privileges,” Jisung says. “We can’t—we’ll never succeed with a militia of homeless and starving people.”

“You’re right,” Minhyun says. “I think—I think we’re nearing the end, though. It won’t be long before they miscalculate, or make a move that isn’t advisable, and then we can probably make a move.”

“So your plan is to wait until something happens to make the middle class outraged and then try to get them interested?” Jisung says, passively critical in the way only he can manage. “I’m not sure. I still think getting the army on our side is more important than the middle class.”

“The army are indoctrinated, though,” Minhyun says. “They get drafted into the army from poor families and they think the army _saved them_ from a lifetime of starvation and poverty. And they see it as their job to defend Korea from people like us, right? They’d never defect.”

Sungwoon hums. “I think Minhyun has a point,” he says. “The army have so many privileges and experiences that have all been for one goal of making sure the army is as loyal to Korea as possible. They might not give a shit about the people, but the army matters, they need their army to be strong to do all the things that they do. They wouldn’t miscalculate on something like that.”

“I think there’ll be a point where the middle class realize that they aren’t superior to the lower class because they have money,” Minhyun says. “Something to happen to make them realize that this could happen to them, too. This could cause loss to them, too.”

“But what?” Jisung says. “How—how can we speed that up, how can we simulate something like that?”

Minhyun sighs. “I think Seongwoo was right,” he says. “A while ago—when he said we should be moving and trying to support the revolution that wants to happen. I was reading, histories and such, and it was all—the people decided they didn’t want to do it anymore. They set up the barricades and they waited and the people all went back to their beds because they weren’t ready to give up everything they’d ever known at that point.”

“Are you saying the revolution will only succeed when the people are desperate enough?” Sungwoon says. “That’s awful. But I think you’re right—I think the people will only be willing to give up their lives if they know there’s nothing to live for.”

 

The Society is already abuzz with loud voices and angry faces when Seongwoo slips in, a few minutes late because he was arguing with the bartender downstairs. Which, now, he knows is a mistake, because this looks like a very intense meeting and Seongwoo maybe should have saved his argumentative spirit until now.

“What’s going on?” he asks Jaehwan.

“Some girl got dragged off by the soldiers,” Jaehwan says. “We don’t know why yet—people are saying she was talking badly about them, but there’s other theories too.” His face is cold and Seongwoo doesn’t think he needs to think very hard to imagine what those other theories were. “People saw her getting dragged away in the street.”

“This is why we need the Society,” Jisung is saying, taking Minhyun’s place at the center of the room. Unconsciously, Seongwoo’s eyes sweep the room for Minhyun, only to find him at the back, furiously writing, looking like he was in his own bubble. “To stop people from getting persecuted. To stand up and say that this is wrong, that this shouldn’t happen, that we deserve better than this. This girl—Jung Chaeyeon, her name was—was the daughter of one of the big upper middle class families in this town. None of us are safe.”

“If a member of the Society had been present while Chaeyeon was being dragged away,” Sungwoon adds, “then someone could have stepped in. Who knows—the Jung family wouldn’t have lost their daughter yet.”

“This is a new development, isn’t it?” Seongwoo asks. “For people to get dragged away in broad daylight? As long as I’ve known it, people get taken from their homes and generally not where innocent citizens can watch.”

“Apparently the girl had been evading arrest for a while,” Jisung says. “Rumors on the street say that the family had been shielding her for a few months, at the very least. They finally managed to trail her to a safe house, and waited until she came out at midday a couple of days later.”

“And just—”

“Yes,” Jisung says. “Literally grabbed her and dragged her away kicking and screaming. Nobody even dared to move. If one of us had been there—I think we can all agree we would have done something to try and stop it, or at least buy her some time.”

Minhyun stands up suddenly. “I need—some air,” he says, raising up the paper he’s been writing on, he crosses the room, flings opens the door, and leaves the room, without so much as an explanation.

The room feels oddly still. Seongwoo doesn’t know if it’s just him, if he’s just biased, if he’s just ( _in love with Minhyun,_ says Woojin’s voice in his head, and Seongwoo shushes it because there’s more important things now than _that_ ). But a Society meeting without the Society’s leader feels useless, hollow, like nothing could be decided and nothing would be completed. 

“I’ll go see what’s up,” he’s saying before he even knows what’s happening. “We can’t have a meeting without our dear leader present, can we?”

Downstairs, it’s not hard to figure out where Minhyun is—he’s right outside, leaning on the glass, staring away from the bar into the darkness of the town. Seongwoo crosses, ignores the glare the bartender shoots him, opens the door and says, “Hi.”

Minhyun looks up. “Hey,” he says. “Are they asking about me? Just tell Jisung and Sungwoon that I really can’t do this meeting right now.”

“They’re not, really,” Seongwoo says. “But the Society doesn’t feel like the Society if you’re not there. You’re our leader.”

“Yeah,” Minhyun says. “Leader. I’m doing a shit job at that, you know.”

“You’re kidding,” Seongwoo says. _You’re the only reason I’m here,_ he wants to say, but that’s not true anymore—he believed because of Minhyun, but he stayed for more than that. “You bring the Society together, Minhyun. If you weren’t there, it would just be another student revolutionary society.”

“I can’t lead you,” Minhyun says again. “I’m single-minded and cold and a hypocrite.”

“Nobody’s expecting you to raise Guanlin, Minhyun,” Seongwoo says. “Jisung does that for you.” It’s meant as a joke, but really, Seongwoo thinks it’s true, in a way. Minhyun is the face of their revolution, but the three of them were an inseparable trio. The head, the heart, the soul. “You’re the soul of the Society, and if it didn’t have you we’d be nothing.” He smiles. “Besides, if Jisung was the leader he’d have kicked me out months ago and then who would be your drunk heckler?”

Minhyun smiles at him weakly, and Seongwoo realizes his eyes are wet. “You can’t still be mad about that,” he says. “I said I was sorry, don’t be an ass.”

Seongwoo smiles back. “Look, Minhyun, I get that you have doubts, but this? The Society? You _are_ the Society, Minhyun, you’re everything it represents—you’re naturally going to lead us to revolution because it’s you who can rally the people.” And Seongwoo doesn’t know why, doesn’t know what causes him to have this much faith in Minhyun, but he knows he always has. Minhyun talks and it’s like he’s cast a spell. Seongwoo knows it can’t be just him who he has that effect on.

Minhyun shrugs. “You’re right.”

“What were you doing in there?” Seongwoo says. “You were writing like it was a race or something.”

“I’m drafting a speech, kind of,” Minhyun says. “For—for when the revolution happens. I have to decide what I’m going to say, what words to use, how to make sure everyone is—is rallying behind us.”

“You’re getting ready for the revolution?” Seongwoo says. “Soon?”

“We haven’t decided,” Minhyun says. “But we think this—a pretty rich girl who never did anything really wrong being dragged away by the soldiers could be an inciting incident. Now—now people know that they’re not safe, for being wealthy or for having big families. We think this might be an in.”

“Morbid,” Seongwoo says. “Using the pain of a family to backbone your revolution. Pretty cold, Minhyun.”

Minhyun’s face falls. “You really think so?” he says. 

Seongwoo blinks. “I do,” he says slowly, not really able to comprehend the situation, not sure what changed to make Minhyun rely on his opinion. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t think it’ll work.”

Minhyun’s eyes are fixed on him, and Seongwoo almost feels like he’s done something wrong when suddenly he leans forward and presses his mouth to Seongwoo’s. Soft, uncertain, chaste, pulling away after a couple seconds to shake his head and say, almost as if he was talking to himself and not to Seongwoo, “We shouldn’t do that.”

Seongwoo’s heart sinks. “No,” he says. “We shouldn’t.”

“It’s a bad idea.”

Seongwoo swallows. “Let’s get back up to the meeting,” he says stiffly. “Doubt they’ll have gotten anywhere without you there to control the discussion.”

 

“Say that again,” Minhyun says.

“Jung Chaeyeon’s father is a relatively high-ranking officer in the Korean army,” says Sungwoon. “Daniel found some stuff out at the factory because the owner of the factory is a family friend who knew him when they were both in army training.”

“Oh my god,” Minhyun says. “She’s fairly well-off _and_ linked to the Korean army?”

“Hard not to take it as a sign,” Sungwoon says. “Jisung said he wanted something to get the army on our side—you said you wanted something to get the middle class on our side.”

“She’s a kid, though,” Jisung says. “Younger than Jaehwan, older than Jihoon. I don’t—I don’t think using her case will do us any favours, especially this soon to what happened. People would be outraged. Her _family_ would be outraged.”

“So we wait,” Minhyun says. “If they’ve done it once, they’ll do it again with no hesitation.” He swallows. “I’m with Jisung, we shouldn’t use her image as a symbol when at this moment of time we don’t even know if she agreed with us or not. Maybe she did and that’s why they took her off, or maybe she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or maybe they used her to get back at her father, or—there’s all kind of explanations that don’t lean to the revolutionary side.”

“And then?” Sungwoon says. “You—both of you ignore every sign that comes up. We need to strike while the iron is still hot, while the people are still outraged, while the people who watched her get dragged away still remember the image of her being taken away.” He stands up. “We fight for people like her—and the people who get dragged away who the people in the streets don’t talk about, because they were older or they went with no resistance or because they didn’t have enough money or because they were a nobody, just some homeless or starving poor person.”

“We can’t use one of those as our martyr, Minhyun. Nobody would rally for—for an elderly farmer, or for a dying beggar, or for a homeless prostitute.” Sungwoon runs a hand through his hair and continues, “People see Chaeyeon’s case and they see that they’re not safe anymore. The novelty of being in a privileged place—that can’t protect them anymore, because the soldiers will take who they want to take and they will stop at nothing.”

“I thought you said we need to care about emotions,” Minhyun says. “That we should start looking at individuals, not—not at the bigger picture.”

“Not like that,” Sungwoon says. “It’s not—it’s totally different. You’re caring about hurt feelings, about people who are angry, about people who never stood by us and now they never will. Back then, when the most important thing we could do was help pay off debts and support widows, when we were trying to build up what we didn’t have. But Jung Chaeyeon’s family didn’t support us before they lost their daughter, and if they don’t support us now we have nothing to lose. But this—making something out of this, showing the damage it caused, showing the pain. That could get people on our side who were never there for us before.”

Minhyun swallows. “I think we all need to think about this a bit more,” he says. “Let’s—let’s go our separate ways tonight and convene back here on Monday.” It’s the only thing he could think of doing. His head is abuzz, his mind is swimming, the revolution is so close and yet Minhyun doesn’t—can’t possibly feel happy. He’s _scared_ is what he is—scared and distressed and guilty.

 _You’re the soul of the Society,_ Seongwoo had said, back there outside the shop, before he’d tensed up and recoiled at Minhyun’s mouth and didn’t stop him when he said they shouldn’t do it. _You’re the soul of the Society._ You’re the core.

 _I need to talk to Seongwoo,_ he thinks. _Urgently._

 

Hwang Minhyun in his doorway is not the strangest thing that had happened to Seongwoo that day, surprisingly enough.

He’d knocked on the door all polite, and then Seongwoo had ignored it so he’d knocked again, loud and hard and erratic, and when Seongwoo had opened the door there he was—breathing heavily, hair a mess, faintly smelling of soju.

“I thought you didn’t drink,” he says. 

“Yeah, well,” Minhyun says. “It’s enough to make me brave enough to say all of this.” He laughs. “You’d think a leader would be brave, huh? Brave enough to stand up and talk about what’s on their mind and be—be a fucking _leader_ , but I’m not brave. I just talk and people listen.”

“That’s what makes you the leader,” Seongwoo says. “You—you have this way, Minhyun, where you make people who didn’t believe in you, who couldn’t believe in you—you make them change their minds. When you talk, people listen.”

“Do you listen?” Minhyun asks. 

Seongwoo swallows. “I was the person changing my mind,” he says. It feels like a confession, feels like an overstep, and mentally Seongwoo slaps himself because Minhyun had _just said_ that they should never do this, that they should never cross that line between colleagues at the Society, no matter how close they are to friendship, and something more. Friends. ( _Lovers,_ says his mind. Seongwoo silences it. That’s something that could never happen, that Minhyun could never want, and Seongwoo is more than resigned to that fate. A stupid, chaste kiss that Seongwoo can still feel even though it’s been hours—that doesn’t matter.)

(And Seongwoo doesn’t love Minhyun, anyway. He doesn’t have time to be concerned about when and how that became an afterthought.)

Minhyun nods. “Can I come in?” he says, casual as ever, barely a stammer in his voice, as if Seongwoo hadn’t just bared his soul to him, as if Seongwoo hadn’t just heavily implied just how crazy he is about him. “I don’t want to say all of this standing in the doorway.”

Seongwoo moves aside. “How did you even find where I lived?” he asks.

“Asked Jisung,” says Minhyun. “Jisung didn’t know, so I asked Daniel. Daniel didn’t know, so I asked Woojin, who just looked at me really suspiciously and told me not to be an asshole about it. And, for the record, I have no idea what he means.”

“Woojin talks a lot of shit,” says Seongwoo. 

“I lied, you know,” Minhyun says, and Seongwoo isn’t sure what he means. “When I said—earlier, outside the pub, when I said we shouldn’t do that, that I didn’t want to—pursue anything with you. I lied.”

“Did you now,” Seongwoo says. 

“And—I was worried, you know? Because all my life I’ve never had time for someone, I’ve never had the time or the mindset to sustain _romance_ , it’s always been change and revolution and all of that. When I was a kid I didn’t look at any of the girls because I was too busy reading. And when I went to university and learned about all the revolutionary movements—that was it, you know? I’ve never been in love, I’ve never had a lover—Sungwoon always says that my one true love is Korea but I thought he was right, you know?”

“Sounds pretty plausible,” Seongwoo says. He has no time for this, for Hwang Minhyun in his front room because he _asked three people where he lived_ , spilling his guts and getting Seongwoo’s stupid hopes up. He didn’t love Seongwoo, he just _wanted_ him. And Seongwoo didn’t want Minhyun to want him. 

Maybe he was in love with Minhyun, he thinks. The epiphany doesn’t come with butterflies, or a sigh of understanding, or a sudden release of breath that he didn’t know he was holding. It just comes with sick nausea.

“But then—then I thought about how much I need you at the meetings when all you do is disagree with me, and how I care about your opinion more than anyone else, and how—before you, when people criticized me, I didn’t care. I didn’t pay them any attention. They didn’t deserve it. And now—now I don’t know. I need you around, you know?” Minhyun sighs. “I think I might be falling for you, Seongwoo.”

“No you’re not,” Seongwoo says. “Maybe you have—I don’t know, some hormonal crush on me. Or—or you think I’m attractive. But you’re not in love with me. Your tastes are so much better than that.”

“You’re what I want,” Minhyun says.

“I don’t want to be wanted,” Seongwoo shoots back. “I’m not—I’m not something you can _have_ , Minhyun. I’m not going to warm your bed because you think you _might_ have feelings for someone who isn’t yourself for the first time in your life. I’m fucking _in love with you_ , I have been for three years and I refused to let myself feel anything because you were so much better than me. Because your true love is the revolution, and the thought of a good Korea, and you’re not that kind of superficial person who _wants_ anyone.”

“You’re not—you’re not just convenient to me,” Minhyun says. “You’re not just attractive. You’re—you’re _you_ , the fucking—drunk heckler, and I need you for more than just to criticize my plans. I care about what you think.” He runs his hand through his hair. “Earlier, when you said using Chaeyeon’s death would be cruel, I was ready to stop everything right there. And—and refuse to use anything related to her. I care about your opinion as much as Jisung’s and Sungwoon’s—when we argue, at meetings, it beats me up for days. I can’t continue planning until—until I’ve taken what you said into account.” He smiles grimly. “And normally, your advice is really helpful.”

Seongwoo stares at him. _This can’t be happening,_ he thinks. There’s no way that he’s liked, pined for, venerated—whatever this is—for the past three years and that Minhyun has, for any of that time, reciprocated. “How long?” he asks. “How long have you—whatever the hell you’re saying, whatever you’re feeling, how long have you felt it?”

“Not sure,” Minhyun says. “I didn’t even consider it for a long time, but once I did, once I even knew it was an option—it just made sense. Like something you weren’t aware of—that was just always there, you know? Always sitting there, waiting to be unearthed, waiting for me to figure it out.”

He sighs. Seongwoo tries to read his face—tries to figure out what he’s saying this with, if he’s nervous or hopeful or earnestly worried, but it’s dark in his apartment and he really can’t see. “I was really dumb, Seongwoo. And you can throw me out—if you want, if you don’t want to entertain what I have to say. You can. But—this is really hard for me to say, but—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Seongwoo says, moving forward to crash their mouths together. Minhyun kisses back, and this—this is something real, this is something tangible, this is something that feels certain and honest and impossible to doubt.

 _I’m dreaming,_ he thinks. _I’m having a dream where I’m kissing Hwang Minhyun._

Minhyun makes a wordless noise, a soft gasp from the back of his throat, and his mouth falls slightly open. 

_I’m having a dream where I’m kissing Hwang Minhyun and I have absolutely no problem with this._

Minhyun pulls away. “So, what are we now?” he asks. 

“No clue,” Seongwoo says. “Frankly, I’m just—look, can we do the talking later?” Minhyun stares at him. “I just—I know I love you, and you _say_ you’re falling in love with me, and there’s a lot of conversations about that that definitely need to happen but right now I just want to kiss you.”

Minhyun steps forward, and for a second Seongwoo thinks he’s going to insist. Then he moves his hands to his waist, underneath the hem of his shirt, and says, “ _Just_ kiss me?”

Seongwoo laughs. He laughs because he’s so disoriented, he’s so out of his element, he has no idea what to do, and he laughs because, at the end of the day, this is funny. “You’re going to be the death of me, Hwang Minhyun.”

And Minhyun laughs back. “There’s worse ways to go.”

 

“So there’s been a development regarding Jung Chaeyeon,” Jaehwan says.

Jaehwan works as an assistant to a pretty high-ranking minister in the region, and somehow he’s always in the know of things that ministers shouldn’t tell civilians. Increases in taxes, proposals that were going to the House, active warrants being issued. He’s been invariably important, Minhyun thinks, but especially with something like this.

“Do we know why she was arrested?” he asks now.

“Nope,” Jaehwan says. “They’re refusing to give any information regarding it but it doesn’t look like she had any ties to the revolution. Or any criminal activities, really. All I know is what we all know—that the Jungs might be in extra trouble for allegedly hiding her in a secret basement.”

Sungwoon winces. “That can’t mean anything good,” he says. “For them to just suddenly have a warrant for her when she didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Right,” Jaehwan says. “But there’s been an even bigger development. Apparently, mere days after his daughter was taken away by soldiers, Jung Chaeyeon’s father, Colonel Jung, mysteriously passed away.”

“Oh shit,” Seongwoo says. “Cause of death?”

“Well, this isn’t being released to the public, but—hanging,” Jaehwan says. Minhyun’s eyes widen. A man driven to so much sadness, to so many problems, that he chose to hang himself—he’s angry again, as he so often is within the four walls of this room, and he stands up to talk.

“So Colonel Jung is dead, Jung Chaeyeon was taken away—what are they planning on spinning this as, Jaehwan?” he says. “Do they plan on letting his family know that it was a suicide?”

“No,” Jaehwan says. “I imagine they’ll say it’s, like, a heart attack or something. Doubt they’ll ever take responsibility for being the reason he’s dead, or for dragging off his daughter for no reason.” He sighs. “He’s getting the regular treatment—you know, public funeral, parading his body down the street, showing the town what it means to be a good soldier and to submit your life to the country.”

“Or as a message,” Jisung says quietly. “This is what happens when you get on our bad side. You lose your daughter and then you lose your life.”

“You think Jung did something to piss them off?” Seongwoo asks.

“I mean, I’ve considered it,” Jisung says. “Why—why Chaeyeon? Why not any other girl, why this specific girl? And—and imagine how it feels to be his wife, or his other kids, losing two family members in one week.”

“And it just goes to show,” Minhyun says. “This could happen to anyone. The mourning period starts today for Mrs. Jung, right? All those callers who go to see her, her extended family, her friends—they’ll see. They’ll see that they’re not safe from shit like this, and they—they won’t be as critical of us if they know how terrible this is.”

The mood of the room is somber. “You sound like you have a plan,” Seongwoo says, and when Minhyun looks over he’s smiling. Minhyun wonders how he’d ever thought Seongwoo disliked him.

“I do,” he says. “We can’t frame a revolution on one event, so we’re going to bide our time. Try and plant the seed. Once there’s been a few more—because if they’re brave enough to do it with Chaeyeon, they might do it again, they probably will do it again—we’ll strike. And rally the people.”

“You think they’ll stand behind you?” Seongwoo says. “Invariably? You think they’re going to rally with you?”

It’s a line of questioning Minhyun knows very well, but it’s less cold, less critical, less cynical. “I think if the revolution is going to happen, it’ll happen naturally,” he says, watching as Seongwoo’s eyes light up slightly, watching the way he fights down a small smile. “But I think if it is natural, it will need a big sign for it. And we’ll know the sign when it comes.”

 

“I didn’t know you were an artist,” Minhyun says quietly.

They’re at Seongwoo’s apartment again, and Minhyun is standing over a small stack of what few sketches he’d managed in the three years since moving here. He’d given up after moving away from his hometown—it reminded him too much of things he couldn’t have anymore.

“I’m not, anymore,” he answers, moving over to wrap his arms around Minhyun’s waist. “Don’t worry about them.” 

“What happened?” Minhyun asks. His voice is rough and tired, impossibly soft, and Seongwoo can’t help himself from leaning over and pressing a soft kiss to the skin of his neck. 

“Moved away from my hometown,” Seongwoo says. He doesn’t want to tell Minhyun the whole story, but the words come out without realizing. “Was in love. It didn’t work out. Got told very empathically by my own parents that it would be a good idea if I left and never showed my face again.”

“How come?” Minhyun asks.

“Would rather not talk about this while I’m trying to kiss you,” Seongwoo says. 

Minhyun rolls his eyes and turns around. “Fine,” he says. “We aren’t kissing. Now tell me.”

Seongwoo sighs. “Well, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but liking men while being a man is illegal in this country,” he says. Minhyun’s eyes widen. “And most people aren’t keen on the idea, including my parents.” He waves a hand. “It’s nothing, though. Don’t look so damn concerned.”

“And you stopped drawing?” Minhyun says.

“I was the apprentice to an artist,” Seongwoo says. “He taught me how to read and write, and then he taught me all of this.” He sighs. “I don’t do it anymore, though. I try, sometimes, but I can’t get it out.”

Minhyun turns around again to look through the sketches. “This one’s me, isn’t it?” he asks, raising one up. It was—half of his face, before Seongwoo had realized what he’d been absently drawing and stopped. (It was neither the first nor the only time this had happened, but this one was the only one he’d kept.) “Why didn’t you finish it?”

Seongwoo shrugs. “Didn’t wanna be drawing someone who I thought would probably strongly dislike me because I was drunkenly heckling them.”

He can’t see Minhyun’s face, but he can bet that he rolled his eyes at that. “You were good,” he says. “Ever thought about taking it up again?”

“What do you know about art?” Seongwoo asks, ignoring the question. (He had—late at night when his mind was fleeting—but he could never make anything come of it. It wasn’t like he’d ever been good enough to sell his work—the artist he’d been an apprentice under had been very critical of him, back then, and now he’d forgotten everything he knew.)

But, he supposes, Minhyun is an artist in some ways. Minhyun is as much a performer as he is a leader; he’s a leader _because_ he’s a performer. He stands up and he talks and he uses the attention to his advantage, and he knows how to get his way with people even if he doesn’t quite understand them. Singers sing, actors act, and Minhyun talks—and Seongwoo thinks that’s as much a performance as anything else.

There’s a superficiality to Minhyun’s revolution, an unspoken recognition of who he does it for, something more conniving than the selfless revolutionary Seongwoo had spent years thinking he was. He’s not infallible. And it’s not always righteous anger that drives him, righteousness that makes Seongwoo think he doesn’t deserve him—sometimes, it’s just his duty.

It’s easier to love and be loved by this Minhyun. More so than the Minhyun who had existed only in his head.

“You’re quiet,” Minhyun says. “You want to, don’t you?”

Seongwoo sighs. “Tell you what, Minhyun,” he says, “if you manage to go through with this revolution, and you succeed with it, and you establish—I don’t know what your goal is, a fucking democracy—then I’ll pick it up again.”

“Would you want to?” Minhyun asks.

”Why not?” Seongwoo asks. “Maybe I’ll paint your presidential portrait.” 

Minhyun laughs. “I don’t want to be the president,” he says. “Maybe for a provisional period, but I would want to establish the democratic selection process as soon as possible.” He sighs. “I would want you by my side for it, though. Not just to paint my picture.”

“You mean, with the other Society members?” Seongwoo asks.

Minhyun laughs. “Yeah,” he says, but it’s uncertain, a little false, and as much as Minhyun is a good speaker he is a terrible liar. “Something like that.”

 

They’re about to start their Friday meeting when Minhyun hears yelling in the street.

He shares one look with Jisung and Sungwoon, and then one look with Seongwoo, and suddenly he’s turning away from nine fairly well-educated young men, going down the stairs, and leaving the bar.

 _Nine_ , he thinks. There were ten of them, normally, excluding himself—who was missing? Why were there only nine today? _Who was missing?_

“What the hell do you want?” Lai Guanlin yells at a soldier, while two other soldiers grab one of his arm. The soldier’s a stout, short man, shorter than Guanlin, but he stands with authority and a sharpness to his expression.

 _Oh my god, Guanlin,_ Minhyun thinks. _What did you do?_

“I want you to show me your papers,” the soldier says.

“I showed you my damn papers!” Guanlin says. “Look. Here they are. Name: Lee Kuanlin. Place of birth: Jeju. I have—I have people in Jeju who can vouch that I was born there, get off me!”

Minhyun stands there, frozen, completely petrified. _Stop them,_ his brain says. _Say something. Move._ He knows that’s what he should do—he’s the leader, he’d _promised_ , they’d agreed after the Chaeyeon incident that they’d step in if anyone needed it. 

And this wasn’t some random person—this was _Guanlin_. One of theirs. Guanlin, the youngest of them all, just a kid really but still so devoted—he had to say something. He had to _move_.

But he can’t make his legs work, and he can’t make his mouth move, and in his head he’s thinking _who’s going to lead the revolution if I get dragged away?_

“These are fake,” the soldier says. “Tell me who you really are or you go to jail, punk.”

“So if I tell you the whole truth, do I get out of jail?” Guanlin asks. He’s standing up tall, his posture doesn’t show that he’s nervous, but he must be. He’s seventeen and staring down a police officer—Minhyun thinks he must be fucking terrified.

 _I need to help_ is the second thought he thinks. And that’s the worst part—Hwang Minhyun, revolution leader, is a hypocrite. Because he’s stood up there how many times after cases and cases of people getting taken away by soldiers and told everyone to stay vigilant, and stay aware, and stay willing to sacrifice yourself if you need to.

Minhyun is a hypocrite because his first thought was _I’m only twenty-two_. 

“You’re a criminal,” says the soldier. “You are in no position to be negotiating.” Minhyun hears the door open and sees Sungwoon and Jisung in his peripheral, staring in shock at the screen.

“Do we help?” Sungwoon whispers.

“I don’t know,” Minhyun whispers back. _Hypocrite,_ says his brain. How many times has he stood up and condemned people who didn’t step in? Who didn’t help when people were being mistreated, who didn’t speak up for people who needed it? How many times?

Jisung steps forward. “Excuse me, sir,” he says. “What’s going on? I came out of this bar to find you in altercation with a young man?”

“We have good reason to suggest that this man is here illegally,” says the soldier. “We issued an order for all non-Koreans to leave to their home countries or go through an application process and renounce their original citizenship. We think this man is not Korean.”

“I’m Korean,” Guanlin says. “I was born in Jeju.”

Minhyun steps forward. “The application process to become a naturalized citizen is extremely difficult and cumbersome,” he says. “Could it not be that this man was just going through the process?” He knows what he should say—something provocative, _shouldn’t you make it easier for people?_ But the words don’t come out.

 _Hypocrite,_ his brain says. _Disgusting hypocrite._

“If he was going through the process, why would he fake his papers?” says the soldier coldly. “I have no sympathy for illegals, mister, and you shouldn’t either, as a good loyal Korean citizen.” His eyes narrow. “Unless you’re not so loyal?”

Minhyun stares back, trying to stare him down. “I love my country,” he says, “and I want it to be the best country it can be. Don’t turn you dragging away an innocent man into a question of patriotism.”

“Well,” says the soldier. “If you continue to argue with me, I’ll arrest you as well for insubordination.” Minhyun doesn’t want to show anything, but he can’t stop himself—he pales and tenses and he knows it’s obvious that the threat has affected him. “Be on your way, sir.”

 _Guanlin_ , says one part of his brain. _He did nothing wrong. And he doesn’t deserve this._

 _The revolution,_ says the other part of his brain. _I have to lead it, I have to be at the front of it._

_Guanlin._

_The revolution._

_Guanlin._

_The revolution._

_Guanlin._

_Seongwoo._

He recoils internally at the thought, fear striking through him at the thought that somehow, somewhere, someone had become just as important to him as the revolution was. And that little pause was enough, that lapse in judgment was enough, for the soldiers holding Guanlin’s arms to begin to drag him away.

“Get the hell off me!” Guanlin says.

“Guanlin!” Sungwoon says. “Just—just stop! Just—he doesn’t deserve this! He’s seventeen—he’s too young.”

The soldier sneers. “He a friend of yours?” he asks. “You guys meet—you didn’t know he was an illegal, huh? His name isn’t Lee Kuanlin, it’s Lai Guanlin. He’s recorded as having moved here from Taiwan twelve years ago, and he’s never recorded as leaving or becoming a naturalized citizen. We found him two months ago—when we did a random search, found a strange name, and in the end the investigation pointed to him.”

“He’s only seventeen,” Jisung says. “Please—have some mercy, he was five years old when he came here.”

The soldier laughs. “Okay,” he says, stepping away. Minhyun breathes a sigh of relief, begins to move towards Guanlin, when he feels Jisung grab his arm. The soldier has taken his gun out of the holster and is pointing it at Guanlin.

“No!” Sungwoon shouts. 

The gun goes off. 

“Guanlin!” Jisung yells. 

 

Inside, the mood is somber.

Nobody has anything to say—or, if they do, they don’t know how to say it. Jisung had headed the three of them, entered with a quiet, “Guanlin’s dead”, and suddenly the Society were the most silent Seongwoo ever remembered them being. 

When Seongwoo had been sixteen, his grandfather died. He remembered it because his mother had been in mourning—sobbing constantly, never leaving the house, shivering and weeping. He’d never known his grandfather, so he hadn’t understood why she was so sad, why she’d been overtaken by tears, why the emotion just didn’t stop.

Not everyone in the Society was crying—Seongwoo was tearing up, but he’d managed to hold it in—but he understood now. They’d known that someone important to them, someone who mattered, someone who meant everything to them, wasn’t coming back. And when it had been an anonymous farmer, or Jung Chaeyeon, or countless homeless thieves and prostitutes, it had just been another injustice. 

When it was Guanlin, though, it was different. When it was Guanlin, it was real and horrible and terrifyingly personal. Nobody could speak—nobody had the words.

Seongwoo had them, though. _Something_ was formulating in his mind—something real, something tangible, something revolutionary. The revolution—it had been so far off back then, something that everybody knew had to happen but that nobody knew when, something that Seongwoo didn’t concern himself with until he met the Society, and that even as a Society member he didn’t care about. But now it was close, personal, killing one of the Society and hurting every other member, and Seongwoo knows this is it. 

“We have to act,” he says quietly, sitting up properly in his chair. “I don’t give a damn if we agreed to wait for a while after the Jung Chaeyeon thing, to bide our time. We have to act _now_.” The other Society members look up, to look at him, probably wondering what he was thinking, but he doesn’t care. He catches Minhyun staring at him from where he is right next to him in his peripheral—wary, but definitely curious.

“It wouldn’t amount to anything,” Jisung says. “You’re the one who’s always saying we can’t force a revolution, right? You can’t start a revolution based on one incident.”

“We’re not,” Seongwoo says. “We’re starting it based on two incidents. The middle class can have their martyr, the pretty girl who got dragged away for no reason, but me? I’ll be doing this for Guanlin.”

The room is silent. Seongwoo can see them processing, rolling the idea in their head, thinking about it. “Guanlin was here every week,” he continues. “He got noticed at one of these meetings, and he got caught on his way to another one. He wasn’t even Korean, but he gave his life up for the revolution.” He looks around again. “We should honour that, surely.”

There’s more silence. Seongwoo thinks they’re going to say no, expects to have to defend what he’s going to say, expects arguments that he doesn’t know if he can deflect. He expects a debate.

“Colonel Jung’s funeral is in three days,” Minhyun says quietly. “All the soldiers in the city will be patrolling it. It’ll be mandatory for everyone to attend. They’ll take his coffin out and they’ll parade it through the streets and—and make speeches about how brave he was.” There’s tears in his eyes still—he’d been sobbing earlier, shaking in his chair—but the revolutionary Minhyun, the leader Minhyun, the Minhyun who could do anything is here. “If we work fast and make our plans, we could start the revolution there, at the revolution. Spark up the people. Get them to turn against the army—for Chaeyeon and for Guanlin.”

“Are you suggesting,” says Jisung, “that we hijack someone’s funeral and start the rebellion here?”

“Yes,” says Minhyun. “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”

Daniel clears his throat across the room. “I think we should,” he says. “It’s what Guanlin’s memory deserves—to be honoured. He didn’t die in vain.” He raises a glass. “To Guanlin.”

And Seongwoo thinks about the last time they’d raised a glass to Guanlin—his birthday, which felt like it was thousands of years ago, when he’d stood up and made a toast for a boy he barely even knew then. He was seventeen years old, and he’d been shot in broad daylight for printing fake papers and not being Korean, and Seongwoo’s heart aches for him and for everyone else like him.

“To Guanlin,” the Society echoes. _And to his death not being in vain,_ Seongwoo’s brain supplies.

 

“You won’t be a very good revolutionary leader if you stay up all night,” Seongwoo says. His voice is hoarse from what little sleep he could get and even in the pitch blackness of night Minhyun can see the deceptively hard expression of concern on his face. 

“I’m staying up all night planning,” he says, equally quietly, voice hoarse but from dehydration, not sleep. He’s exhausted. The last three days has been a whirl of action, of movement, of decisions and plots and even more decisions. When he closes his eyes he imagines barricades of furniture—when he opens them he’s invariably faced with a Society member asking what to do about something.

Most of them had refused to go home, and those that were willing had insisted that they weren’t sleeping if the others didn’t, and so they’d rented out every room in the pub and had split into groups. Tomorrow was the day—tomorrow, in the morning, doors would be hammered on and soldiers would shout that everyone had to be there. And the houses would be emptied and the streets would be full and the Society—led by Minhyun—would stand up and lead them to revolution. (Woojin and Jihoon had spent the last couple of days going around houses and telling them that there would be a revolution tomorrow.) They’d only had three days of rallying the people towards their cause, but Minhyun hoped dearly that what he had to say would get more sympathy. He wonders if he should include the exact terms by which the taxes had risen.

“I didn’t do anything, you know,” he says suddenly. “When Guanlin was—with the soldiers—god, Seongwoo, I barely did anything. I couldn’t even move. I was completely petrified.”

Minhyun listens to the sound of Seongwoo standing up and moving towards him. “Jisung says all three of you stood up to the soldier.”

“Jisung started it,” Minhyun says. “And—and then the soldier said he was going to arrest me too, for insubordination, and I stopped. I couldn’t stand my ground—after all those months of telling people to do it, I couldn’t. We talked so much about what to do if we saw someone getting arrested—but there was nothing I could bring myself to do. I was completely frozen. All I could think of was how I had to lead the revolution, as if—as if that was good enough to justify the death of a seventeen-year-old.” He sighs. “I was terrified.”

Seongwoo sighs. “Of course you were,” he says. “Of course you were scared.” He wraps his arms around Minhyun’s waist, such a familiar gesture but it almost drives Minhyun to tears. It’s ridiculous, he thinks, that Seongwoo had thought Minhyun was too good for him. Minhyun was a fraud—a coward, a hypocrite, and a fraud. “But that doesn’t make you a—a fake, or anything. Or say that you’re not good enough to be our leader. You tried, Minhyun. You failed, because—because of the exact same reasons as before, because it was just the three of you and because the soldier himself was so power-mad, but that doesn’t mean you’re not good enough to lead us. Nobody else could lead us. I couldn’t possibly imagine it.”

Minhyun swallows. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he says quietly. “I’m trying my best but I still have no idea what I’m doing, and I’m—I’m terrified, Seongwoo.”

“Well, how could you?” Seongwoo says. He sighs. “When we first met, I went along to your meeting because I thought it would be funny—watching a bunch of clean-cut well-educated boys talk about what they think is best. I thought you’d all be awful, or senseless, or not have any idea what was happening outside your bubble. I thought that, after the first criticism, you’d throw me out, and then I’d laugh about it, because, _rich people, am I right?_ ”

“Seongwoo,” says Minhyun. “What—what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that when I made a criticism at that first meeting—I don’t even remember what it was a criticism _of_ , I just remember it being very loud—you didn’t throw me out. You stood there, and you thought, and you answered—I didn’t like the answer, either, but it was an answer—and you weren’t what I expected at all,” Seongwoo says. “And then the more meetings I went to, the more time I spent watching you talk—I started to believe in it, too.”

Minhyun sighs. “You don’t have to—you don’t have to say stuff like that because you know I’m doubting myself,” he says. “I don’t want you to lie.”

“I’m not lying,” says Seongwoo. “I went into the Society a total cynic, and I came out—still cynical, but not as much as I was before. Back then, I saw you talk about revolution and I thought the odds were zero. I thought there was absolutely, whole-heartedly no chance that a group of pretty well-educated middle-class boys would be able to overthrow the government, and I thought you were either stupid, naïve, or arrogant for even entertaining the notion.”

“And what’s the odds now?” Minhyun asks.

Seongwoo laughs. “Maybe forty out of a hundred,” he says. “Forty-five if Woojin and Jihoon did especially good rallying, but really—any speech you made, any revolution you led, would be at least thirty. And that’s a testament to you, Minhyun.”

“Seongwoo,” says Minhyun.

“You can’t save everyone, Minhyun,” says Seongwoo. “And there’s only so far you can go on your own. But if you’re at the back of this revolution, if you’re the one planning it and putting it into motion…”

“You have faith?” Minhyun asks.

“I think you could do anything if the situation lined up well enough,” Seongwoo says. Minhyun’s heart swells. “And you could do lot more than anyone else in your position could, as well.” He smiles, illuminated by the moonlight coming in through the window. “Now at least try and get some rest, Minhyun.”

Minhyun swallows. “Seongwoo,” he says. “When—when I was out there, and Guanlin was being held by the police, I thought about the revolution that I had to lead and then I thought about you.”

Seongwoo stills. “Me?” he says. “I don’t think I matter as much as the revolution does.”

“I didn’t think I cared so much,” Minhyun says. “But I did. I love you, Seongwoo. If—if we don’t make it past tomorrow, I want you to know that.”

Seongwoo sighs and wraps his arms around Minhyun. “I love you,” he says. “I’ve loved you for so long.”

There’s still so much to do. He needs to read over his speech, and decide once and for all on all the tactical points, on where in the street they would build their barricade. The revolution is still there, swimming around in his head, terrifyingly large and closer than he could have ever imagined it.

Tomorrow, they would both put their lives on the line; tomorrow, he would have to become the leader, the revolutionary, the kindling of the fire. But tomorrow was another day. Tonight, he rested. 

**Author's Note:**

> canonically, the revolution in both this fic and les miserables fail. i just a) am terrible at writing violence and b) didn't have the heart to kill all of wanna one. also, this is the longest one-shot i've ever written and writing out the revolution would take at least another 10k, lmao
> 
> i can be found on [twitter](https://twitter.com/neosveIvet) and on [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/970524_com) if you want to find me!!


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